I have posted before about surveys that showed Fox News viewers had less knowledge of current events than the viewers of other news sources. Now there is a new survey (from WorldPublicOpinion.org) that verifies the findings of those previous surveys. It seems that the misinformation (and many times outright lies) spread by Fox News in the guise of "news" really is dumbing down those viewers. The chart above shows ten things that are just not true, but which a significant number of Fox viewers believe are true.
And the percentage of Fox viewers believing those things are higher than from any other news media. Here's how WorldPublicOpinion.org describes it:
Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that:
*most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (8 points more likely)
*most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points)
*the economy is getting worse (26 points)
*most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points)
*the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points)
*their own income taxes have gone up (14 points)
*the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points)
*when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points)
*and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points)
These effects increased incrementally with increasing levels of exposure and all were statistically significant. The effect was also not simply a function of partisan bias, as people who voted Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to have such misinformation than those who did not watch it--though by a lesser margin than those who voted Republican.
